


We Start to Unravel the Mysteries of Jake Peralta

by Himrqwerty



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Concussions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, everyone hates roger, hurt Jake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 08:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11353950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Himrqwerty/pseuds/Himrqwerty
Summary: What if Jake isn't always so loud?Well, here you go.





	We Start to Unravel the Mysteries of Jake Peralta

Jake made Gina swear to secrecy when he got her the job. Jake was usually a pretty quiet dude —  he had been ever since his dad left. 

As a coping method, little Jakey decided it was his fault his dad left. He was too loud and too stupid and bad at baseball and his knees were always skinned and —  the list was long. It was an actual list, written on several scrap pieces of paper that he stapled together. The first sheet has five staples in it because he keeps finding new reasons why it’s his fault his dad left.

The list lives under his mattresses. It’s made it through his four moves and no one has seen or asked about it.

He became pretty much mute after his dad left. After all, if he made his dad leave, he could make Nana leave, or his mom, or Gina, or.... Sometimes this train of thought landed him squarely in a panic attack. 

He had them at work quite often, actually. It was painful to force himself to speak often and loudly. It tore shreds in his little self-worth to be like his younger self. He spiraled a lot in the precinct.

So he made Gina promise —  swear on Sal’s —  to not reveal his secrets. She helped hide his attacks and distract him occasionally. 

It was a system that worked for them for a long time. He often emerged from a panic attack having solved his case, so no one ever questioned his absence. He’d trained himself to recover quickly, anyways. Or, that’s what he told himself.

The broken system hobbled along and ignored the many negative consequences for Jake’s health until — 

Until Amy came home with him. They’d been chasing a perp, who’s then-unknown accomplice barrelled Jake over and beat his head until he’d gotten a concussion. 

Amy arrested the perp and his accomplice and then took Jake to the hospital, where the nurse gave Amy the rundown and released him. Jake hadn’t fallen unconscious and wasn’t having problems remembering, so he just needed some time to recover. 

Amy took him home and got him settled and pretended not to be unnerved by the fact that Jake hadn’t spoken a word since they had left to chase the perp(s). She chalked it up to the head injury and stubbornly ignored the fact that she’d seen him in worse shape and he was still blathering on, leaning on Terry and laughing at Charles. 

She falls asleep on her couch and jolts awake two hours later, instinctively throwing herself to her feet, half crouched and weapon cocked. She stays there, crouched by the couch until she heard the noise that woke her up.

It was a muffled scream, like someone in the throes of a night terror. 

It cut through her muscles like she was a puppet. It took yet another noise for her to uncock her gun, throw it on the couch, and scramble desperately towards Jake’s bedroom.

She fell into the propped door, barely noticing the dig of the door knob in her hip, but when she finally —   _ finally  _ —  got to the edge of his bed, she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know if she could touch him without dragging him further down into this mess. 

She compromised with her over-tired brain, letting her hand hover close to his head, close enough to feel stray hairs but far enough away that Jake probably couldn’t feel her hand. Her right hand stayed the same distance away from his hip, strategically placed so she could vault over him to hold him close if she needed to.

“Jake,” she whispers. Nothing. “ _ Jake! _ ” She whispers again. When he doesn’t respond, she follows her instinct to card her hand through his sweaty hair. He flinches in his sleep, and Amy freezes.

In the deathly silence, she realizes she’s been talking the whole time, letting her voice fill up the air where his usually occupies. “Jake, baby, it’s okay, I’ve got you, you’re safe, I won’t let anyone touch you ever again, it’s okay baby,” and on and on until Jake relaxes enough for Amy to feel comfortable resuming petting him.

He wakes up slowly, which she hadn’t expected. Usually, she bolts awake from nightmares, but Jake wakes up slowly, twitching his joints one at a time until his eyes open, one at a time, for milliseconds at a time, until he groans out, “Ammmms?”

She knows he’s trying to say her name, say ‘Ames,’ and it draws the tension out of her like nothing else can. “Hey, Jakey baby. I’ve got you. It’s...” she reads out the date and time, tells him where they are and lets her voice fill the room for the second time that night. 

She’s been crouching by his bed for longer than she slept when she realizes that he hasn’t tried to interrupt her once, and she startles so violently Jake makes the first noise since he awoke nearly an hour ago.

“Huh?” He says.

“Jake... can I ask you a question?” She asks hesitantly. His eyes fill with anxiety and fear and acceptance like he knows what’s coming and he isn’t going to like how it ends, but he nods anyway. “Why... why do you talk if you don’t like to?”

His brow furrows and Amy knows that isn’t what he was expecting. His hands knead the sheets, letting himself focus on the material instead of the question. After a moment, Amy stands, and Jake makes a desperate noise from somewhere in his stomach at the feeling of her hand leaving his scalp.

It returns to scritch right above his ear and she murmurs, “I’m just grabbing some paper so you can write an answer, sweety. I’ll be right back. I can talk the whole way there and back, so you know I’m not leaving you, okay?” She pauses. “Sound good?”

Another pause and Jake belatedly realizes she’s waiting for his approval. He nods three times, leaning his head up into Amy’s palm before she leaves. 

She talks about her socks on the way there and the soothing squeak of new shoes on the way back. When she returns to her crouch by Jake’s bed, he’s smiling gently and the sight of it makes Amy want to sob in relief. She, instead, hands Jake the notepad and pen and says, “Why do you talk if you don’t like to?”

She’s willing to give Jake all the time he needs, which is good because he takes a couple minutes —  ten, by her estimate.

This is why she’s confused when she takes the offered notepad and it only has one, legible sentence.

_ It’s either talk all the time or not at all. _ The paper bears in handwriting that is unmistakably Jake’s, although much neater than any reports. It breaks her heart and Jake makes another pained noise that originated somewhere in his stomach when he sees her eyes fill with tears and yet another when he sees them fall.

She climbed into bed with him and holds him, pressing his broad shoulders back into herself and setting her knees in the backs of his. She holds him tightly and allows the tears to drip into his hair and says, “Please take care of yourself,” through a tight diaphragm. When she gets no response, she says, “Please let me take care of you,” through a pounding heart and barely breathes until he nods just the littlest amount.

Then all the air bursts out of her lungs and ruffles his hair. She clutches him tighter and falls asleep fully dressed.

The next morning, she wakes up the moment Jake’s breathing changes. They get up together and Amy lets him not talk and Jake lets her talk her way through not being in his direct line of sight (or direct touch). She talks while she goes to the bathroom and talks while she changes and Jake has never loved her more.

When she emerges from the bathroom, wearing a clean pair of leggings and Jake’s NYPD sweatshirt, he’s clutching the list in his clammy hands. He holds it out to her, whole body shaking.

The title is written in the terrible handwriting of seven-year-old Jake. It takes Amy a long time to read, and she gains an appreciation for how hard Jake worked to get his note last night to be legible. She makes a mental note to read more on dysgraphia and continues struggling through the five-page list of  Reason’s Dad Is Never Coming Home .

Tears drip down her nose and she carefully doesn’t let any fall onto the paper.

She finishes the list —  the only terrible list she knows —  and asks Jake a question. “Can I add something?” 

He stares at her, head cocked and brows furrowed, before nodding once, slowly dipping his head and handing her the pen from last night.

When she’s done, she hands the disgusting list back to Jake with a new piece of paper added on. It reads

  1. _Because he’s terrible and can’t comprehend how much he is missing out on._
  2. _Because Jake’s wonderful-ness makes him feel bad about how much he sucks._
  3. _Because Charles and Gina threatened him about hurting Jake last time he ‘visited’ and Gina is really scary._
  4. _Because he doesn’t deserve to have someone as wonderful as Jake in his life._
  5. _Because Amy threatened him too and she’s even scarier than Gina when she’s protecting the people she loves._
  6. _Amy loves Jake Peralta._



 

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly this is an excuse to fill up the Jake Peralta tag with more Hurt/Comfort and Cuddling AKA my two favorite tags.
> 
> ~~ 
> 
> This has become my most popular fanfic, and I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for reading, commenting, kudos-ing, and supporting me! I am shook everytime I get an email about it. I never expected it to get this far! So thank you again for your love <3


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